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Appendix D
What to do in School and Why

Previous:  C How to Read

A  Why Go or Attend

Education is for both sons and daughters. The assumption that someone else will provide home and shelter for us is too often false. So you should get the most out of your schooling and education. Your ability to get a job, your future earnings and your future joys and companions may all depend on what you learn in and after school. All this may also depend on factors beyond your control (wars, social conditions, the economy or parents). The suggestions provided below are for some, not all eventualities.

School can be a place where you learn to master rule and pattern-based thought (logic) and where you master further skills and knowledge. You are in school to learn about the wide range of human knowledge and behavior. Try to understand whatever you might be asked to study or do. Think for yourself and ask why you or others do this or that.

In school, you should look for the ideas new to you and for the ideas worth repeating to others. That is what makes a class or a subject worthwhile. Again, ideas which you have already seen are reassuring and comforting - not much work is needed here, but you only learn from the ideas new to you. Look and search for them.

What you see in school and in books represents the experience of others. When you are observant, you can learn from the experience, skills and mistakes of others instead of your own.

History courses, English (or literature) courses, science courses and some realistic novels offer this experience secondhand. Secondhand knowledge of hardship is preferable to first hand. Ask your teachers, relatives and the others about the joys and the difficulties they met or foresee. Learn from their experience. Ask for opinions. Guidance from others requires the statement of opinions. Get two or more opinions even if you liked the first. Seek and politely allow opinions different from your own. Different points of view may sharpen or change yours.

B  Health and Social Skills

You are also in school to meet people and to learn how to mix or socialize with others. To this end, join a club or group activity. See how people, including yourself behave in groups. After school, the opportunities to mix may decline - or you may not develop the habit of mixing and socializing. Choose activities you like. Try one, two or several, but leave enough time for your studies and for special events. Suggestion: each week, get three or more hours of physical exercise. This exercise could come from physical labor. Or, you may find a sport or activity which you can do now and later. This exercise should build your health without risking it and without damaging it.⁴

⁴I saw in a university soccer match or practice in 1984, a player with a small cast on his leg. I thought he was risking permanent damage.

In 1990, after twenty years of cross-country skiing for exercise etc, I began to ski in colder and colder conditions without fear. The eventual result was a deep frostbite to my cheeks, an area difficult to protect. Then for five years, exposure to the cold was an unpleasant experience followed by hours of pain or discomfort - a distraction from work and play that is not recommended.

C  Suggestions for Learning

By law you are required to attend school. Make sure your time is not wasted. Make sure that some of your courses are with helpful, hard-driving, teachers. Ask them for advice on what to do or what could be useful to you. Further advice follows. It repeats in part advice given in previous appendices.

1. Look for the ideas new to you and for ideas worth repeating. When you are preparing for a test or for a future lesson, your studying is done when you can find no ideas new to you.
2. Try to remember the names of places, people and ideas. You can use the names in conversations, essays and tests later.
3. Learn to read precisely what is written. This skill will serve you well. It gives you more independence both in class and when you leave school. It may allow you to learn at your own pace.
4. Learn to take notes. When no textbook is present, note-taking skills will be needed. When a textbook is present, look at it first. (Reading it in advance may allow you to take fewer notes and understand lessons better.)
5. Learn to type. Today, computers are used in all areas of office work bureaucracy and technology. These computers are controlled by keyboards. Accurate, if not fast, typing skills will make your exposure to computers and report writing more pleasant.<sup>5
   
   5</sup>This advice is valid now. Advances in computer technology - the introduction of voice-controlled dictation/computer systems - may make part of this advice stale or obsolete.
   
6. Get careful thinking skills. That is, master the use of rules and patterns. Every area of skill and knowledge offers rules and patterns which you might follow. Learn to read exactly what each says. To follow, to agree or to disagree with rules, you need to understand exactly what they say and exactly what they don't say.
7. In high school take courses which provide immediate job skills such as auto-mechanics, typing, metalwork, woodwork, drafting etc. Master arithmetic and learn to read and write carefully. Employers want skilled workers. They are easier to train and worth keeping. Even if you are planning a college education, practical job skills could get you a summer job. They may allow you to work and pay for part of a college education. Care is required to take the best and avoid the worst of the academic and non-academic courses in your school.
8. Take English or master another language of your choice, well. This includes reading, writing, speaking and reasoning. When you write, tell a story, describe what is, or present an opinion or defend one. Watching for ideas worth repeating, will help.
9. Take history courses. Courses with ideas new to you are worth taking. If possible, avoid history courses which only promote the group, state or country in which you live. History courses tell us about the experiences and mistakes of past, if not present generations.
10. Read newspapers which do not (always) glorify the nation or group to which you belong. Contrary opinions make us think. So look for and read newspapers with views you occasionally find disagreeable.
11. A little uncertainty in the words of a teacher leaves room for thought and the practice of thinking skills.

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